Resources

A Tau Alpha Pi adviser’s duties are twofold: firstly, to provide guidance and assistance to the student chapter leaders in directing the activities of the chapter; and secondly to handle the administrative tasks surrounding inducting new members. Some ideas for chapter activities can be found here, although we strongly encourage our student leaders to take the lead in conceiving and directing chapter activities. We also recommend that chapters consider having more than one adviser, to ensure continuity and to reduce the workload involved in maintaining an active chapter.

Inducting New Members

As early as possible, identify all students in your Engineering Technology program who are eligible for Tau Alpha Pi based on their GPA and send an invitation letter by email. We recommend allowing a month or so for students to respond, and that you follow up your email with a personal conversation with any students who do not respond. For larger programs, you may wish to hold a brief informative session open to invitees explaining the benefits of membership.

Set a date for your induction ceremony and ensure you send a complete list of inductees to the Tau Alpha Pi National Headquarters at tap@asee.org at least two weeks before your induction ceremony. Headquarters makes every effort to turn requests around quickly, but we cannot guarantee certificates, pins, and honor cords will be delivered in less than two weeks.

Please use this spreadsheet when submitting your list, completing all sections and including the total number of students invited. This spreadsheet will be used for invoicing you, and for generating certificates, so names must be written as you wish them to appear on the certificates.

In the past, Tau Alpha Pi has asked each new member to complete an application form. This is no longer a requirement, but you may find it useful to adapt the form to gather information for the spreadsheet.

Tau Alpha Pi’s membership fee is $35 per person, although we currently offer one free membership for every eight paid members. It is your responsibility to collect membership fees from new members, as well as to determine who receives free membership if you have more than eight inductees.

If you also wish to order honor cords, please indicate how many in your email. These will be included in your invoice ($9 per cord) and sent along with your pins and certificates.

Induction into Tau Alpha Pi follows a set ritual. Instructions for the ritual are not made public, but are sent to new chapters on receiving their charter and are available for advisers upon request. Please email tap@asee.org for a copy of the induction process. Induction is a memorable event and some chapters choose to invite other attendees, or to host a meal afterwards.

Please note that Article VII, Section 1.(f) of the Tau Alpha Pi constitution stipulates that a chapter may elect up to one honorary member per year. The honorary member must have made significant contributions to the chapter in question, and this can be an effective way of acknowledging the contributions made by advisers.

Key Monument

Chapters have, in the past, chosen to design and create their own Tau Alpha Pi key monuments, based on the design of the society’s pin. This serves as both a practical project for students and faculty, and as a form of publicity for the chapter. The efforts of Arizona State University (the monument was renovated in 1991, but the chapter is no longer active), University of Dayton (Ohio Beta), and Lake Superior State University (chapter is no longer active) are documented in the Tau Alpha Pi journals. Wayne State University (Michigan Beta) kindly provided the design for the Key Monument pictured below.